online vs reality essay

A Virtual Life: How Social Media Changes Our Perceptions

Social media offers connectivity, but it is important to find a balance. Learn about how it is changing our perceptions of ourselves, others, and the world by participating in one of our Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Programs.

In social psychologist Kenneth Gergen’s, Ph.D., 1991 book, “ The Saturated Self “, he warned of an Orwellian world where technology might saturate human beings to the point of “multiphrenia,” a fragmented version of the self that is pulled in so many directions the individual would be lost. “I am linked, therefore I am,” he famously said, playing on Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am.” Little did Dr. Gergen know how dead-on his prediction would be.

Because as our society sits here more than 20 years later with our tablets and cell phones and electronic gadgets—seduced by the lure of the blue light glow—we have never been more linked, more connected, and more bound to a virtual reality that many of us can no longer live without.

“Tethered to technology, we are shaken when that world ‘unplugged’ does not signify, does not satisfy. We build a following online and wonder to what degree our followers are friends. We re-create ourselves as online personae and give ourselves new bodies, homes, jobs, and romances.

A virtual life is shiny and bright. It’s where you post your prettiest pictures and tell all your best news.

Yet, suddenly, in the half-light of virtual community, we may feel utterly alone,” writes licensed clinical psychologist and MIT professor Sherry Turkle , Ph.D., in her best-selling tome,  “Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less From Each Other.” Founder and director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, the book is the third in a series on the effects of technology on society and culminates 15 years of research on the digital terrain.

The long-term psychological impact of social media on individuals and their sense of “self” remains to be seen. But there is one thing we do know. Our daily lives have been digitized, tracked, and tied up in metrics. Our real selves have split into online avatars and profile pictures and status updates. And while social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are powerful tools that have the potential to build communities, connect relatives in far-flung places, leverage careers, and even elect presidents of the U.S., they are also unleashing myriad complex psychological issues that have altered our collective sense of reality.

A virtual life is shiny and bright. It’s where you post your prettiest pictures and tell all your best news. “In games where we expect to play an avatar, we end up being ourselves in the most revealing ways; on social networking sites such as Facebook, we think we will be presenting ourselves, but our profile ends up as somebody else—often the fantasy of who we want to be,” Dr. Turkle writes. But is it real? More importantly, is it healthy?

The Unreal World

Ali Jazayeri, Ph.D., associate professor of clinical psychology at The Chicago School’s L.A. Campus , thinks there are clear and present dangers that can’t be ignored.

“I definitely think that social media has had a very deep impact on our lives. The world that we see on Facebook and other social media sites is not a true and real world. It’s a creation of people,” Dr. Jazayeri explains. “Among other dangers that Facebook might possibly pose in our lives, such as lack of privacy, is this habit of always comparing ourselves to others. People, when they are happy, post a lot of happy things. But when I’m not happy I will consciously, or unconsciously, compare myself to others. As a result, I create a world that is not a true world because I imagine that everybody is happy in that world, except me.”

While each social media site has its own personality and purpose, the wildly popular Facebook with its estimated one billion active monthly users has gained the most attention from psychologists for its potential to distort an individual’s sense of self and sense of other people. The magnetism of social media in conjunction with the effects on reality while diminishing individuality comes with significant consequences.

What concerns Jazayeri most, from a psychologist’s perspective, is the danger of slipping too far into a virtual world and losing a sense of real life, real self, and real priorities.

A 2011 clinical report on “ The Impact of Social Media on Children, Adolescents and Families ,” published in Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, was one of the first to raise the issue of “Facebook depression” among young people worried that they weren’t accumulating enough “friends” or “likes” in response to their status updates.

Around the same time, Cecilie Andreassen, Ph.D., and her colleagues at the University of Bergen (UiB) in Norway published a piece about their work with the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale in the journal Psychological Reports. And this all came on the heels of somewhat controversial news that the American Psychiatric Association was considering the addition of “ Internet addiction ” in an appendix to the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5).

What concerns Dr. Jazayeri most, from a psychologist’s perspective, is the danger of slipping too far into a virtual world and losing a sense of real life, real self, and real priorities. 

“Some people use this social media to create something that they are not,” he says, explaining that the virtual world can distract people so much from their real lives that they either forget who they are or become so involved in the reality they’ve created that they don’t want to work on their own issues. Social media can ultimately create a false sense of reality.

“Instead of me trying to deal with things I don’t like about myself, I will go online and present myself in the way I’d like to be seen, without any changes to me,” Dr. Jazayeri says. “It’s dangerous, and very deceptive. If you look at the history of psychology, we’ve spent the last 100 years trying to help people know themselves better, deal with their shortcomings, deal with things they don’t want to have, so we have a very reality oriented atmosphere in our Western psychology.”

Dr. Jazayeri worries that an overreliance on this virtual world is undermining all the progress human beings have made in addressing real-life problems. Social media allows an escape from reality to the point of neglecting real-world issues and creating a false reality. 

“As psychologists, we have theories based on the reality of patient’s lives. Our goal is to help people try to see themselves for the reality of what they are,” he continues. “But if we perceive that everyone else is perfect, then we push ourselves to become someone that we are not, and then we get frustrated, and then we get depressed.”

Like Dr. Turkle and other experts, he is careful to also note the value of such sites for helping people do everything from reconnect with old friends and family members to rallying community members during times of national tragedy or disaster. However, he believes we need limits—that as a society we need to be vigilant about taking time to unplug, to disconnect, and to reconnect with ourselves and our real lives.

In a statement that echoes Dr. Gergen’s words from 1991, Dr. Jazayeri concludes by saying, “Someday, I hope we will appreciate that the computer is not a substitute for a real human being.”

Consciousness, Collected

Eleazar Eusebio, Psy.D., formerly an assistant professor in the School of Professional Psychology at The Chicago School, has been fascinated with the concept of virtual worlds and social media since the early chat rooms of the 1990s.

“Something I like to talk about a lot in psychotherapy are the various dimensions of consciousness,” he says. “It can get really psychoanalytical if you’re going to look at what kind of behavior people are putting out there. I have been studying Jungian analysis, and I do find it interesting, especially when you look at personality types.”

Whether your inner nature tends toward paranoia, narcissism, manic, depressive, or even melodramatic behaviors, Dr. Eusebio says these things unconsciously manifest themselves, rather publicly, in an online setting.

As any Facebook user knows, there are “types” among almost anyone’s collection of “friends.”

“I don’t want to psychopathologize everybody who’s online, but I think it’s possible to take a quasi-diagnostic look at it when you examine what people write or how they interact online,” Dr. Eusebio says.

Of all the social media sites, he says Facebook is a place where almost every personality type can be found and analyzed. “This is the best modern example I’ve come across of what I’ve been calling the collective unconscious personified. How do we choose to present ourselves to this world? In addition, at what point do we stop?”

As any Facebook user knows, there are “types” among almost anyone’s collection of “friends.” Some use the site solely to promote their business or career. Others take the opportunity to share political opinions, while others post several status updates per day about things as banal as what they had for breakfast or what’s on the dinner table. Some are a series of check-ins at restaurants, clubs, museums, and airports. There are braggarts and complainers; cheerleaders and naysayers.

“Online groups tend to triangulate people. This environment will provide you the tool to display any kind of psycho-pathology,” Dr. Eusebio adds. “Cyberspace alone is a psychological extension of our own intrapsychic world. We all have various dimensions of our unconscious. And with social media, you can really dive into people’s lives. The danger is we throw our reputations out there, and we put avatars attached to who we are.”

While he says most adults have the foresight to screen their online behavior—to think twice about who’s viewing their status updates, photo albums, and check-ins,the more compulsive types often do not, especially if the posts are made in the heat of the moment, late at night.

“One notion we might overlook is whether we would be saying the same things or sending the same messages if we were face to face in a coffee shop,” Dr. Eusebio wonders.

Or, even scarier, a job interview.

The Professional Fibber

John Fowler received an M.A. in Psychology at The Chicago School’s Chicago Campus in 2009 and for several years made his business teaching other professionals how to use social media to advance their careers. Three years have passed since he published his book, “Graduate to LinkedIn: Jumpstart Your Career Support Network Now,” and he says the social media of today is already vastly different.

“Professionally, you say that you want to brand yourself. But you can sometimes get so lost in branding yourself the way you want to be perceived, that what you present online isn’t who you really are. When potential employers meet you in person, they want you to be consistent,” cautions Fowler, who now works at Deloitte Consulting and sometimes uses his social media background to help clients leverage their brands.

However, in a virtual world where it is understood that everyone exaggerates and reality is always slightly distorted, the temptation to lie or stretch the truth is more pervasive than ever.

It’s one thing to post your prettiest vacation photos on Facebook or to exaggerate how wonderful your life is (for the clear benefit of ex-boyfriends or college rivals), but when it comes to using social media for your professional advancement on sites like LinkedIn, truth and ethics are just as important online as they are on your printed resume.

“One huge thing that’s gone on over time is the social media world isn’t always real. It isn’t reality. I think we need to keep that in mind,” Fowler says. “There’s a fine line between branding yourself well and straight up lying and misrepresenting your experience.”

Resumes have always been prone to exaggeration, despite the best advice to be ready to back up any degree or certification you might claim to have earned. However, in a virtual world where it is understood that everyone exaggerates and reality is always slightly distorted, the temptation to lie or stretch the truth is more pervasive than ever. It then turns into a battle between  truth and falsehoods originating from virtual reality and perceived expectations.

“And for the younger generations—people who were born into this age—there’s a danger there that they could possibly take this as the way the world is,” Fowler  continues. “I think some people want to hide. You go on Twitter and you have an avatar, and you want to hide behind that. But when that doesn’t match up to who you really are, especially professionally, that’s when it comes back to haunt you.”

That said, Fowler still believes in the professional power of social networking sites like LinkedIn, and more recently, Facebook pages being utilized by businesses and organizations. “Social media has its advantages and disadvantages. It’s a tool, and like any tool, you can use it the wrong way. There are great things that come out of it. Just recently, it was instrumental in raising money for people who were affected by Hurricane Sandy. And I think it’s going to evolve. The social aspect of these platforms is going to live on. What remains to be seen is how this will affect the way we conduct business.”

Love in the Time of Social Media

In all of the incarnations and manifestations of social media in our lives, one aspect that can’t be ignored—particularly when it comes to how we present ourselves and perceive others—is how the always-on, must-be-perfect virtual world has changed our most intimate relationships.

Whether you’re a single 20-something looking for a Mr. or Mrs. Right or a newly divorced parent dipping your toes back into the dating scene, online sites such as Match.com , OKCupid.com , and eHarmony.com have revolutionized the idea of how we meet and connect with new people. The fairy tale endings are legendary, as are the tales of love, loss, and heartbreak.

But what is often overlooked is how the surreal world of social media affects people who are already in domestic partnerships, marriages, and other long-term relationships.

Melody Bacon, Ph.D., a licensed clinical therapist, assistant dean of academic affairs and chair of the Marital and Family Therapy program at The Chicago School’s L.A. Campus, says social media and the distractions of technology cause problems for couples because they provide another way to disconnect.

As far as affairs go, Bacon says if the will is there, people will always find a way.

Most people these days have heard stories about how Facebook and other social media sites that offer opportunities to chat or flirt online have wrecked marriages. But Dr. Bacon says we shouldn’t blame Facebook any more than we should blame our 24/7 dependence on cell phones or other digital technology.

“In terms of relationships, it’s just one more thing that keeps people from being able to connect and be together without fighting for attention. I know of young mothers with little kids. I see them at the park, the kids are playing or trying to get attention and mom’s on Facebook or doing something on her phone. They think they’re engaged with the outside world but they’re not. Children are drowning with their mom and dad sitting there on their smartphones. They have no idea how disconnected they are.”

As far as affairs go, Dr. Bacon says if the will is there, people will always find a way.

“If someone’s going to have an affair or cheat in some way, it’s just another opportunity,” she says. “I don’t think it’s causing a problem, but I think it does make it easier. I don’t think it necessarily starts relationships, but people become open, they start flirting, and over time it can become where they connect in person. If you have a partner who is unhappy in their marriage, they are more likely to be available to someone else online.”

The question is, how “real” is that virtual paramour? And if the relationship is based on a carefully groomed online persona, how “real” are you?

A Balance Between Social Media and Reality

That disconnect that Dr. Bacon refers to is at the very heart of what Dr. Turkle is chronicling in Together Alone.

“As we instant message, email, text, and Twitter, technology redraws the boundaries between intimacy and solitude,” she writes. “We talk of getting ‘rid’ of our emails, as though these notes are so much excess baggage.

Teenagers avoid making telephone calls, fearful that they ‘reveal too much.’ They would rather text than talk. Adults, too, choose keyboards over the human voice.”

The irony of it all is that we can see it happening—to our kids, our friends, even ourselves. We know it’s a problem, but we don’t know how to stop it.

As  Dr. Jazayeri says, social media is here to stay and is a new reality we have to contend with. The question is, how do we find balance?

“Sites like Facebook can be positive in connecting people. In my classes, we do family diagrams, and students are connecting with people across the country or across the world. Facebook is great for meeting up with people that way. It can be positive, but to a limited degree. Because once you’ve made that connection, unless you talk on the phone or have some verbal communication, you’re limited to verbal sound bites,” Dr. Bacon says.

 Tom Barrett, Ph.D., department chair and an associate professor in the clinical psychology department at The Chicago School’s  Chicago Campus, shares many of the same concerns as his colleagues about people losing themselves in this new virtual world. But he also believes that the motivation for connecting online is the same as it’s always been—a human urge to belong, and to be accepted.

“It’s not that the ability to network this way is a problem. People have always experienced the range of emotions from the insecure to the confident,” Dr. Barrett says. “I think we tend to think the technology is what is causing the problem but we just have a new way of expressing an old problem. It’s a long-standing reality that people struggle in relationships. This is a new way to disconnect from your family, or partner, or loved one, but it’s just a new form of doing an old thing.”

As Dr. Jazayeri says, social media is here to stay and is a reality we have to contend with. The question is, how do we find balance?

“I definitely do not want to discard the benefits of all this connectivity, but there has to be a limit to it,” he continues. “I hope people can begin to recognize that Facebook and social media can’t be a substitute for everything in their life. Instead of me sitting and reading other people’s posts on Facebook for two hours, I can go do some community work. Maybe I need to ask myself, ‘why do I always have to be so busy with someone who is not real?’”

As Dr. Gergen said more than two decades ago, “I am linked, therefore I am.”

Do we want this to be our future, our reality? What happens from here is up to us.

If you’re interested in learning more about how social media and the virtual world have impacted people’s idea of reality and individualism, study Psychology & Behavioral Sciences at The Chicago School . 

* This article, originally appearing in the Spring 2013 issue of INSIGHT magazine, was updated in July 2023.

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Social Media Vs Reality

This essay will discuss the contrast between social media and reality, exploring how social media platforms often depict an idealized version of life. It will examine the implications of this disparity on mental health, self-esteem, and perception of reality. The piece will also consider the role of digital literacy and the need for critical consumption of social media content. More free essay examples are accessible at PapersOwl about Communication.

How it works

Nowadays, social networking websites are popular among teenagers, and parents are required to guide them on the right way of using it since it can be harmful if used wrongly. The negative impacts of social networks on teenagers are as follow. Whenever you go through someone’s profile on Facebook it is filled with happiness. A quality time with family hanging out with friends traveling blogs several parties and the list go on. What we could see is their happiness on social media and not the offline life behind it.

Those people portray the greatest part of their life on social media. Whenever we look at those profiles we get an impression that they are better than us. Low self-esteem begins after spending an hour on Facebook. We become aggressive for not achieving or possessing a life like them. Some teenagers do not update a post themselves but compare their life with other random strangers they see on social media. The result is that they see a negative about them and become dissatisfied with their current life.

Cyberbullying is one way of harassing via digital devices. This can be done through chatting SMS and even on online networks. Sending inappropriate pictures and videos stalking peoples profiles posting negative statuses or comments invasion of privacy spreading rumors about somebody else are considered as cyberbullying. Teenagers are most likely to be the victims of this persecution. Their private email or text messages are forwarded and their embarrassing pictures get posted online without their permission. Most teenagers cannot differentiate the real email with the correct identity and the phishing emails. Sending blackmails to teenagers is the easiest way of threatening them since they tend to view and respond to almost every message. There are lots of news and information on social media and we are not supposed to explore every aspect of it. The more time we give on scrolling updates on social media platforms the more new things we get introduced to. Adolescents like to discover every new post they see on social media and if it is not controlled on time there may have sleep deprivation which may affect their health. Since teenagers pass more time on social media they started losing concentration in their studies. They may even start failing in exams due to their addiction to social platforms. Getting an in school is not as important as notifications in Facebook applications.

Checking likes and viewers have become more exciting than checking homework and assignment. Receiving the messages from social media friends become their happiness instead of initiating a conversation in real life. Comparison is about envying others capability that we wish we could be like them. People may be showing their best life online and hiding the reality behind it. Comparison sometimes may bring the motivations to your life but it is just for a few minutes. Indeed the comparison can grow the negativity in our life. We ignore the fact that what other people could do might be against our ability. In comparison we do not appreciate our own qualities and our values instead we disgrace ourselves for not being the person they are. The comparison makes us blind which means we are not seeing our abilities anymore. We lost self-love while comparing ourselves to other people who we think is better. Not achieving things we desire in our life could bring nothing but dissatisfaction. We have missed other important things while demanding the things that are not possible to get. Parents with teenagers are likely to receive more demands from their kids. In this stage of life comparison is too high for them. they want everything they see even if it is useless for them. We compare because we do not appreciate what we have and we are not enough with what we have. A person with the mind of comparison they will never be enough for what they have and instead, they will ask for more even if they are rewarded with the most expensive stuffs. Teens tend to design their life on social media platforms and they invest their life in there.

The most active person in social media are teenagers. They like updating posts on social media and wait for feedback or comments from the viewer. Editing the caption million times before and after they update a post checking the viewers after every ten minutes and replying to the comments have become their daily habits. They cant even stay for one day without updating status and if there are no viewers they started earning whatever they can to receive views and likes. Some cut their skin or hurt their body and some even go on live doing harmful activities which can even lead to suicide. These behaviors are for nothing but to become famous. They have wasted their time on checking the viewers likes and comments meanwhile they miss other important things to do in their life.

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Social Media vs. Reality: Examining the Disparity Between Online Personas and Real-Life Experiences

The rise of social media has transformed how we interact, share information, and present ourselves to the world. While these platforms offer unprecedented connectivity and opportunities for self-expression, they also foster environments where the disparity between online personas and real-life experiences can be significant. This article delves into the complexities of this phenomenon, exploring the motivations behind curated online identities, the psychological impacts, and strategies for bridging the gap between social media and reality.

The Construction of Online Personas

Curated identities.

Motivations Behind the Mask

Several motivations drive individuals to construct idealized online personas. The desire for social approval and validation is a significant factor. Likes, comments, and shares provide instant gratification and a sense of belonging. Additionally, people often use social media to build personal brands, enhancing their professional and social status by showcasing a desirable lifestyle.

The Role of Algorithms

Algorithms on social media platforms play a crucial role in amplifying these curated identities. By prioritizing content that garners high engagement, these algorithms encourage users to post attention-grabbing, often idealized content. This can lead to a feedback loop where only the most polished, engaging posts are visible, reinforcing unrealistic standards and expectations.

Psychological Impacts of the Disparity

Comparison and envy.

The disparity between online personas and real-life experiences can lead to negative psychological effects, particularly through social comparison. When individuals compare their everyday lives to the highlight reels of others, it can result in feelings of inadequacy and envy. This phenomenon, often referred to as "compare and despair," can significantly impact mental health, leading to anxiety, depression, and lowered self-esteem.

Imposter Syndrome

The pressure to maintain an idealized online persona can also contribute to imposter syndrome. This condition is characterized by feelings of fraudulence and the fear of being exposed as a "fake." When individuals present a version of themselves online that is not fully aligned with their true selves, the dissonance can create significant stress and undermine their sense of authenticity.

Isolation and Loneliness

Ironically, while social media connects us to more people than ever before, it can also lead to feelings of isolation and loneliness. The curated, often superficial interactions online can lack the depth and authenticity of real-life relationships. As a result, individuals may feel disconnected despite being constantly "connected."

The Reality Check: Bridging the Gap

Authenticity and vulnerability.

One way to bridge the gap between social media personas and real-life experiences is through authenticity and vulnerability. Sharing more genuine, unfiltered moments can help create a more balanced and realistic portrayal of life. This can foster deeper connections and provide relief from the pressure to maintain a flawless image.

Digital Detox and Mindfulness

Engaging in regular digital detoxes can also be beneficial. Taking breaks from social media allows individuals to reconnect with the real world and reflect on their usage patterns. Mindfulness practices, such as meditation and journaling, can help individuals stay grounded and maintain a healthy perspective on their online activities.

Critical Consumption

Being a critical consumer of social media content is crucial. Recognizing that what is seen online is often a polished version of reality can help mitigate the effects of social comparison. Following accounts that promote positivity, authenticity, and mental health can also create a healthier online environment.

Encouraging Honest Conversations

Encouraging open and honest conversations about the impacts of social media can also help bridge the gap. Sharing experiences and challenges related to social media use can normalize these feelings and provide support. Communities and platforms that prioritize mental health and authenticity can play a pivotal role in this effort.

The disparity between social media personas and real-life experiences is a complex issue with significant psychological implications. By understanding the motivations behind curated identities and the impacts of these online personas, we can develop strategies to foster authenticity and well-being. Bridging the gap requires a collective effort to promote genuine interactions, mindful consumption, and supportive communities. Embracing the reality behind the posts can lead to a healthier relationship with social media and a more balanced, fulfilling life.

• Here's How Social Media Affects Your Mental Health
• The Social Media Feedback Loop
• Social Comparison and Mental Health - SpringerLink
• Social Media's Effect on Self-Esteem: How Does It Affect

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Social Media vs. Reality

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Infographic transcript.

Our social media persona is often very different from who we are in real life, and the boundary between the two is getting blurrier. That unclear difference has an impact on our psychology – sometimes positively and often times negatively.

Personal appearance

• #style has well over 400 million heavily edited outfit, travel, and beauty posts on Instagram. [1]
• 73% of women compare their bodies to images they see in the media.
• 50% of those women make unfavorable comparisons when they look at the images. [2]

Social setting with friends

• 45% of U.S. teens say they are “almost constantly” online. [3]

At a concert

• 85% of all millennials use social media. [3]

Being a parent

• More than 90% of babies have a presence on social media before their second birthday. [4]

Marriage / relationships

• 42% of people aged 18-29 reported their partner was distracted by cell phone use when together. [3]

Sometimes, what we post on social media doesn’t reflect what’s really going on in our lives. Consider a B.S. in Psychology from King University to explore how social media affects our perception of reality.

Interested in learning more about social media psychology? Check out King University’s online B.S. in Psychology to start understanding the effects, benefits, and drawbacks of social media. Our flexible program is designed to work around your schedule, and you can earn your degree in as few as 16 months.

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The Big Ideas: What Is Reality?

Our Virtual Lives Are Real Lives

We invest meaning into the physical world — and we can do the same in digital worlds.

By David Chalmers

Mr. Chalmers is a professor of philosophy.

This essay is part of a series called The Big Ideas, in which writers respond to a single question: What is reality? You can read more by visiting The Big Ideas series page .

How should we understand reality in a digital age? The popular acronym “IRL,” short for “in real life,” contrasts real life with digital life. On social media, I post photos of philosophy conferences. In virtual reality, I’m a whiz at playing the rhythm game Beat Saber. But IRL, I’m a professor at New York University who writes books about consciousness and reality.

This acronym from the 1990s now seems old-fashioned. In the 2020s, the assumption that digital life is not real life no longer rings true. When a child is bullied on Instagram, it’s a real occurrence with real consequences. When you hang out with your family over Zoom, it’s a real family gathering. When you lose money from trading Bitcoin , it’s a real loss. Digital life is an integral part of real life today.

To get to the bottom of this, we need to clarify what it means to be real. Philosophically, there are a few different ways we can define the concept of reality.

First definition: Something is real if it makes a difference. The coronavirus is real because it makes people sick. The tooth fairy isn’t real because it doesn’t do anything. Its work is mainly done by parents who tell stories about it and leave money for teeth. In this sense, digital life is real. What happens on the internet impacts our everyday lives. A change in Google’s algorithm can ruin a business . A politician’s tweet has the potential to bring down a government.

Second definition: Something is real if it’s not just in our minds. A mirage is only in our minds, so it’s not real. A tree falling in the forest happens outside our minds, so it’s real. The internet isn’t all in our minds. Websites still exist while we sleep. Blockchains are present on networks of machines around the world and stay there even when no one is viewing them.

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Does Social Media Actually Reflect Reality?

An Afghan boy accesses a social media website on his smartphone, in Kabul, Afghanistan. Young ... [+] Afghans are increasingly finding love on social media, though the trend is mainly limited to the urban middle class and only 10 to 20 percent of Afghans have access to the Internet. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

Social media platforms have become a dominant source of data used by governments, corporations and academics to study human society. Yet, in the rush towards ever-more sophisticated algorithms and visualizations to analyze trends from social media, we are ignoring the critical questions of how well social media actually reflects societal trends and just how to use all of the analyses we produce.

Perhaps one of the most dominant themes of the “big data” era is the tendency of data scientists to grab every shiny new dataset or tool and derive meaning from it without spending the necessary time to understand the underlying biases or nuances that might impact the questions being asked of it. Immensely sophisticated algorithms are increasingly wrapped into turnkey user-friendly environments that make it easy for non-technical users or even technical users unfamiliar with those particular techniques, to apply them without understanding the constraints or limitations of the algorithm or enforcing limitations of the datasets and parameters applied. Even when software implementations of algorithms warn of improper parameters or incompatible datasets, those warnings are frequently lost in long software pipelines such that the end user is happily delivered a result regardless of whether it is actually meaningful.

Today’s big data world is driven more by computer scientists than domain experts, which has created a situation in which technological sophistication is frequently prioritized over methodological soundness and accuracy. Writing for Wired in 2014 I noted that one of the primary driving forces behind the limitations of current sentiment mining tools is that current systems have been largely built by the computer science disciplines using assessment techniques that have remained largely unchanged since the first sentiment mining system built more than half a century ago for punch card computers. Yet, such systems are now finding use in policing, where an innocent tweet about a card game called “rage” can result in an increase in one’s police threat score.

Yet, perhaps the greatest threat to today’s social media analytics is that in a world of astounding algorithms processing billions of data points to create stunning visuals, we rarely pause to ask whether the results are meaningful. For example, I once sat through a briefing to defense and policy officials that purported to summarize views of the Syrian population across the country. Amidst claims of analyzing tens of billions of data points to generate what were truly beautiful visualizations, I was the only one in the room to ask where the data came from. The answer was that they had keyword searched tens of billions of tweets to locate English language posts that contained certain emotional words and were also GPS tagged. Yet, in Syria at the time Facebook was a more popular communications platform, few communications were GPS tagged and most were in local Arabic dialects rather than fluent English.

This example also raises another critical limitation of many social media analyses: the size of the sample analyzed, rather than the size of the sample searched. While the author's keyword searched tens of billions of tweets, their final sample of matching English-language GPS-tagged tweets containing the desired emotional keywords and sent from within Syria was extremely small. It is important when interpreting a social media analysis to look not at the number of starting data points searched (which tends to be what is most often reported), but rather the number of data points actually incorporated into the final analysis (which tends to be vastly lower).

There are also many questions about the representativeness of social media and its penetration into each geography and demographics around the world. As I explored last August, Twitter has largely stalled in its global growth and geographically has failed to expand substantially beyond the footprint it had four years ago. This can create critical blind spots , such as the Yemen conflict, in which a Scud missile fired into Saudi Arabia was covered heavily by social media users in Saudi Arabia, but covered little by Yemeni users due to differing social media penetration. In this case, social media offered a rich and detailed view of the launch through the eyes of Saudi Arabian citizens, but at a cost of capturing just half of the conflict. Few analyses of social media take the time to study the penetration into each community or geography of interest or adjust or normalize their findings to account for underlying nuances and biases.

The social media platforms themselves often provide conflicting accounts of their penetration or use ever-changing metrics. Tinder made headlines when its CEO claimed in an interview that the service had  “80 million users worldwide and 1.8 billion swipes per day” while the company’s SEC filings stated it had only 9.6 million daily active users and 1.4 billion daily profile swipes. Twitter has constantly evolved the way it reports growth and user engagement to the point that it caught the attention of the SEC last year. Airbnb raised concerns earlier this month over potential filtering of its listings in a report design to assuage concerns over its use in New York City. The bottom line is that even publicly traded companies redefine their metrics of growth so frequently or provide such conflicting information that it can be difficult to robustly assess their penetration into an area of interest.

Analyses drawn from social media can often yield results wildly off from reality, even in social-saturated markets such as the United States. In the hours leading up to the Iowa causes, Bernie Sanders led Hillary Clinton in Facebook mentions by 73% to 25%, yet when the votes were tallied they were nearly tied. In 2012 Twitter produced an interactive visualization of tweets about candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney that showed Obama dominating engagement in Southern states that ultimately were won by Romney. Similarly, Facebook recently released by-county data showing Sanders sweeping the entire country on the Democratic side, with Trump dominating overall. While those prognostications may ultimately come true, they also reflect the fact that Facebook’s demographics are heavily skewed and raise the question of what precisely “liking” the page of a candidate means.

In the 2012 election, Facebook allowed users to tell their friends that they had voted, with more than 9 million users taking advantage. On the surface, the data appeared to show that Obama overwhelmingly turned out women voters, with a two-to-one ratio of women declaring they had voted compared with men and more Democratic than Republican voters. Yet, when Facebook explored the data further, they noted that “women are disproportionately more likely to share in general on Facebook” and in fact, women shared twice as much on Facebook as men about all topics. In short, the two-to-one ratio of women to men voters was simply an artifact of two-to-one sharing in general on Facebook, not a reflection of the election itself. Democrats were also much more likely to share with their friends that they had voted compared with Republicans. Age also played a role, with Democrats 18-44 more likely to share that they voted and Republicans over the age of 65 more likely.

While every platform has its biases, the problem here is that only Facebook itself has the ability to assess the biases of its platform and it does not publish those statistics together in a single machine-friendly dataset that is regularly updated. Think about it for a moment – a researcher wishing to understand whether Obama turned out women voters in large numbers would only have the ability to search for posts matching particular search criteria. The final analysis would show that women voters outnumbered men by two-to-one. An ordinary researcher would not have the ability to go back and compute the total volume of all posts by women versus men across all of Facebook on all topics to discover that this is simply an artifact of Facebook itself, rather than a seminal finding about the election.

While it is possible to approximate aspects of gender bias by using portfolios of searches on different topics, no one but Facebook’s own researchers have the ability to properly normalize results generated from their platform. It is thus impossible to know whether results derived from the platform, such as Sanders’ enormous lead over Clinton in Iowa, were due to a last-minute change in sentiment as voters stood in line at the polls, or whether Facebook users in Iowa were heavily biased towards the particular demographics that favor Sanders.

Twitter, in particular, has become one of the primary data sources used for societal study because of its machine-friendly API access that allows users to directly ingest the live Twitter stream for analysis. Yet, in many areas of the world, Twitter is not the primary conversation platform for social communication. In China, for example, Weibo would likely be a far better source than Twitter. Facebook offers basic API access, but not on the scale of Twitter’s interface, and, most critically, the majority of Facebook content is not public access like Twitter’s. In fact, the public square experiment of social media appears to be rapidly fading.

Even those users that remain on a given social platform may change the way in which they use it to express themselves over time. In fact, the representativeness of a social media platform may be inversely related to its ubiquity in society. As one college student put it in an interview with CNBC, “Millennials post less now and about less trivial things. Perhaps this is because we're older and more mature, but it's also because Facebook's omnipresence has given everyone we've ever known access to our lives. This has forced us to create and maintain a public persona: We're less likely to broadcast all of our lives authentically, and more likely to engage in selective sharing.” She notes that “the presence of parents, teachers and future employers on Facebook” has necessitated far more selective sharing and that newer platforms like Instagram with its “filters and photo manipulation [have] create[d] a photo-sharing network that is more visually perfect — and unreal — than ever before.”

Social media analytics has become so commoditized today that nearly every tool on the market offers the ability to enter a set of keywords and get back a volume timeline, a basic sentiment timeline and a word cloud of top hashtags and keywords. Yet, how exactly should such tools be used? In the absence of platform-wide statistics like those enumerated by Facebook in their 2012 study, it is impossible to normalize or adjust results for the underlying biases of each platform. At the same time, social media may not always offer the best data source for a given question. Monitoring for disease outbreaks in the forested regions of Guinea or public sentiment in war-ravaged areas of Yemen may not necessarily be questions that are most amenable to social media insight. Even a question like consumer preferences among young social-savvy college students in the United States might be biased by underlying changes in how that demographic uses the platform, even if they are heavily represented among its users.

There is also the question of how social metrics correspond to reality. I once saw an analysis of Twitter that showed Justin Bieber as the most influential person in the world about Syria. While a tweet by Bieber to his tens of millions of followers will no doubt be widely read, it is unlikely that his musings on the Syrian peace process will suddenly sway the warring factions and yield overnight peace. In fact, this is a common limitation of many social analyses: the lack of connection between social reality and physical reality. A person who is highly influential in the conversation on Twitter around a particular topic may or may not yield any influence in the real world on that topic.

The question of how to use measures derived from social media data (or indeed any kind of data) is often overlooked in favor of bewitching visualizations. Generating a word cloud of the most frequently used hashtags appearing in conversation about Syria is not useful in itself – someone must actually use those results to effect change. More often today that word cloud will simply be copy-pasted into a PDF report as a pretty illustration on the cover, rather than used as part of a critical analysis of the insights it does or does not provide into the Syrian peace process.

As I have written many times before, as the “big data” and analytics worlds grow up, they must move beyond their technological roots to involve domain experts, ask questions about and understand the biases of the data being analyzed and move beyond pretty visuals to real decision making for the power of data to truly reach its potential.

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February 12, 2021

Social media vs. reality: engaging the digital world as a christian.

Do you know what situation is likely to cause a quarrel? Gather a representative from each generation and put them in a room together. Then ask them to converse about social media.

The result would be interesting. And that may be putting it mildly. It is not hard to imagine the  baby boomer ranting about how today’s youngest generations don’t know how to look up from their phones. Meanwhile, the millennials might be rolling their eyes while scrolling through their app du jour.

While the descriptions above are certainly generalizations, there are differing perspectives among the generations. The conversation has the potential to break down faster than a trending hashtag becoming yesterday’s news.

When it comes to the social media vs. reality conversation, it’s all about perspective.

Boomers lived most of their lives before the internet and social media ever existed. ‘Social’ meant going outside to play with friends. Toys were a luxury, so spending the day making up games was normal. They brag about playing outside all day when they were kids, and it’s their badge of honor to tell stories of how their parents had no idea where they were until it was dark.

But for kids today, they’ve never known life before the internet, life before Facebook and Twitter, or life before these snappy chatter apps. The generation growing up now has never known social life without screens.

Social Media vs. Reality: Which is Better?

Let’s get this argument about which is better — a pre-social media or a post-social media society — out of the way and admit we can’t answer this question. 

Yes, it was better for our eyes when we weren’t spending so much time in front of screens. But technology has also brought us a level of productivity and education never before realized in the history of the world. (And we all have quick access to that history now, thanks to Google!)

At the very least, it has allowed for a larger (and quicker) distribution of information. We cannot say we are not informed. The information coming at us may be about some celebrity activity, or it might be the most recent natural disaster.1 The reality is, because of the expedient nature of social media, we can respond in real-time to things happening around the world.

In addition, with three billion people using social media2, the influence one person can attain has never been bigger. One immediate benefit is the unlimited potential scope of our influence — our reach is exponentially larger now. Plus, social media enables us to keep in touch with and make friends all over the world! 

Like everything else in life, social media has its downsides as well. For example, do we trust the sources giving us the information? Is there potential to become addicted to ever-increasing screen time? And perhaps the reason why you’re reading this blog — does social media alter one’s understanding of reality? 

Let’s explore how social media distorts reality and our perception of it.

Social Media Perception vs. Reality

For anyone that has spent any amount of time scrolling through social media, it is no secret that it can foster a sense of discontentment, insecurity, or even depression. When we see others accomplishing more than us, it can breed low self-esteem or even a lack of self-worth. 

We have an opportunity to rejoice in the good happening among our friends and peers, but if we stack their glossy world on social media vs. reality as we know it, discouragement can follow. In fact, one study found 6.7% of Americans over the age of 18 suffer from depression.3

The real challenge comes when we become envious of everything our friends appear to be doing. We compare their online world with our offline world and we often feel we don’t measure up. Of course, we forget that we ourselves will only post the bright spots of our day, so we find ourselves comparing the best of our friend’s lives to the worst of our own. No wonder the majority of Facebook users tend to have lower self-esteem.4  We need to be reminded that our friends are likely comparing their struggles to our bright spots as well.

Another study revealed that it might not be how we compare ourselves to others. Instead, it could be how our own posts perform on social media vs. our expectations for how they should perform.4 We anguish over the number of likes our posts receive, and we let our online engagement define our self-worth. We realize we can’t be other people, but often times, we agonize over not being a better version of ourselves.

Harnessing the Social Media vs. Reality Conversation for God’s Glory

So what are we to do with all this information? The internet will not suddenly close up shop and cease to exist. To hope it might is to shelter ourselves from all the perks that come with it.

But isn’t this where thoughtful Christians have found themselves in every generation? Technology forges ahead and we must adapt. To do so without thought will mean giving up a part of who we should be. 

So what are earnest Christians to do with the social media vs. reality conversation?

We should seek to be truth and light in whatever relevant outlet we find ourselves in. For the Apostle Paul, it was a Roman jail cell. For us, it might be the 280-character confines of Twitter.

As Christians, we need to have a holistic view of social media vs. reality, understanding that every tool at our disposal has the potential to use us. We must realize that social media can be a dark shadow, but we have been called to be light. If the Great Commission applies to us today just as much as it did the first-century Christians, then it should apply to the social media realm as well.

The need for Christ-focused and biblically-grounded people in all spheres of influence is why Grace College exists.

At Grace College, we equip the next generation of leaders to effectively engage the world as we know it. We don’t shy away from complex, nuanced, and multi-faceted conversations like social media vs. reality. We dive in. We wrestle. And we seek Christ to show us the role we are to play in reflecting Him to all corners of the world. 

Are you interested in making a true impact? Discover how the ways of Grace can help you endeavor forward on this path.

1 Guzman, Alejandra (2016, April 7) 6 ways social media is changing the world Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/04/6-ways-social-media-is-changing-the-world/

2 For an interesting read on social media and business, read https://bit.ly/2uOPrWZ

3 Sunstrum, Kelsey, How Social Media Affects Our Self-Perception Retrieved from https://psychcentral.com/blog/how-social-media-affects-our-self-perception/

4 Gallinari, Elizabeth (2017) “Likes” for Self-Love? The Effects of Social Media on Self-Perception [Undergaduate Review] http://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1405&context=undergrad_rev

5 Matthew 28:18-20

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Social Media Essay: Social Media vs. Real-Life Communication

Can Social Media Destroy Real-Life Communication?

Introduction

As humanity progresses, the way people communicate changes as well, with every year becoming easier and more effective. First, there was post-crossing, then phones were invented, and now, when almost all people have access to the internet, social media is used in order to not only communicate internationally, but also within short distances.

Social Media as a Threat of Real-Life Communication

With growing popularity of platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and other messaging apps, some started to argue that real-life communication is on the edge of extinction. It is especially dangerous for those who are already growing up using social media. On the other hand, people also suggest that online communication is only improving the state in which people live in, and it is just a matter of time when there will be achieved a great balance between real-life and online communication. What is sure to say is that social media has definitely affected face-to-face interaction in a lot of cases, yet it is up for anyone to make their own decision if this influence is negative or positive.

The Impact of Online Communication on Verbal Skills and Emotional Intelligence

One of the arguments against excessive use of texting and online communication is the fact that children will not be able to develop verbal skills and emotional intelligence. Dr. Kate Roberts, a Boston-based school psychologist, is an owner of such an opinion, and she blames technologies on the increasing amount of people who have problems with face-to-face communication, saying that “it is like we have lost the skill of courtship and the ability to make that connection” (Johnson). She is also highly concerned about children’s brains changing because they use an easier method of communication, through online media. Yet, some parents are already taking action by limiting the time that their kids spend online, so this problem might be more about good parenting, than about how destructive Instagram and Facebook are.

The Effect on Real-Life Friendships and Social Circles

Some also argue that social media is harming friendships people have in real life. Some studies speculate that a human brain can only handle a friendship with a limited amount of people, about 150 people to be exact (Chesak), which could resonate negatively with social media’s friend groups having no limits. Due to the excessive amount of friends online to communicate with, people could find themselves having not enough time or energy to spend on real-life friends.

The Influence of Social Media on Language Skills

These are not the only negative consequences of increasing use of social media. People who text tend to use verbal language less, which could decrease language skills and make it harder to build a structurally correct sentence (“The Negative Impacts of Social Media on Face-to-Face Interactions”). What also needs to be addressed is an increasing problem with social media addiction, which might be more harmless than smoking or drinking, yet it still profoundly impairs the quality of life, and makes it harder to not only communicate in real life, but also perform other essential actions like working, driving, or even eating.

Public Opinion on the Use Of Social Media for Communication

Ordinary people tend to have different opinions even when they are not considering scientific studies, though it is evident that the most popular belief is that online communication is, in fact, harming real-life communication. To the question of whether social media destroys real human relationships, eighty percent of the people on Debate.org answered “yes,” and only twenty percent chose “no” (“Does Social Media Destroy Real Human Relationships?”). People are sharing their opinions that using phones makes people ignore what is happening around them, and online interaction cannot replace face-to-face communication.

There are quite a lot of reasons why people think that social media is affecting real-life communication negatively, yet it has not destroyed it. As it is, for now, people use social media as one of the tools to communicate, and the time when social media will entirely replace face-to-face interaction has not come yet, and it probably will never come, if people try hard enough.

Works Cited

Chesak, Jennifer. “How Social Media Is Taking Away from Your Friendships.” Healthline , Healthline Media, 9 Jan. 2018, https://www.healthline.com/health/how-social-media-is-ruining-relationships#2. “Does Social Media Destroy Real Human Relationships?” Debate.org , https://www.debate.org/opinions/does-social-media-destroy-real-human-relationships. Johnson, Chandra. “Face Time vs. Screen Time: The Technological Impact on Communication.” Desert News , Desert News Publishing Company, 29 Aug. 2014, https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865609628/How-technology-is-changing-the-way-we-communicate.html. “The Negative Impacts of Social Media on Face-to-Face Interactions.” Final Inquiry Project , 1 Dec. 2015, https://rampages.us/peasedn200/2015/12/01/final-inquiry-project/.

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We can’t imagine our life without social media. We communicate, share our emotions, order food, and work online. But what about real-life communication? The author of the social media essay suggests that Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and other services can’t destroy face-to-face interaction, but they certainly may hurt our communication.

If you’re interested in similar topics, we highly recommend you to read another social media argumentative essay on how social media connect people or cause isolation. You’re free to use our samples as a source of inspiration or templates for your writing. However, copying without proper citing is forbidden and will be considered plagiarism.

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I believe that a social media consultant must be attuned to the company goals and aspirations if he or she is to represent them on their social media channels. I also think that outsourcing social media marketing is a good idea for a company looking to specialize in their core business. In any case, most businesses outsource marketing and advertising and I don’t see why social media marketing should be any different. You just need to be actively involved to ensure that you are represented in the way that you want

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The Difference Between Your Life On Social Media And Your Reality

• https://thoughtcatalog.com/?p=698617

So often are we caught comparing our lives in their chaotic entirety to the sliver of beauty shown by other people via social media. We’re so disconnected from real life, constantly chasing some made up perfection because that’s all we see when we’re browsing the internet. We hide our mess, and we show our best. Everyone wants people to think they’re happy, things are going well, and that life is good all the time. I can’t say I blame anyone- no one likes to show off the ugly side of life. But that’s just not the truth. That’s not real. And how deceiving is it to try and convince people that it is? With social media having such a huge role in connecting us to so many people, it’s understandable that many may not want to share everything. But at the same time, it’s hard to put your own life together and figure out who you are and what’s right, and what’s wrong, all while being stuck with thoughts like “why can’t I be like that?” – when you have so many different influences at your finger tips shouting perfection at you from so many different outlets. It makes you feel so inadequate!

It’s just one of those things, one of those “cons”, to the whole social media movement that we all just need to be aware of. Every human being has bad days. If their social media implies otherwise, they’re lying.

For example, I posted a photo once that sort of implied that I had a productivity morning. I got up, made my tea, I got (sort of) dressed, I even took a picture. But, that’s hardly what happened. I got up late because I didn’t have to go into work until that afternoon. I put a little makeup on and I brushed my hair, but I didn’t even change out of my pajama pants. I hadn’t walked through half my house. I only left bed to make tea, get yogurt, brush my hair, and put a different shirt on. I was not having a productive morning!  And the crop job I did on that photo? (1) to hide my legs because I was self-conscious about them, and (2) to hide the horror of a mess on our night stand. That’s not very exciting stuff and it makes me look bad. So we just omit those parts, leaving things to look much better than they really are.

Will I continue to do this? Probably. Because I like my life to be aesthetically pleasing across my blog and social medias. But I’m not afraid to tell you what it really is. I’m not ashamed of what my life really is. I don’t want to show off my mess, obviously, but I’m not reluctant to tell people that I don’t have it all together. I probably never will, and I embrace that about myself.

What people show online is not everything. Just because someone shows off all their yummy and healthy meals via Instagram and Snapchat doesn’t mean she didn’t eat ice cream on two separate occasions that day because she was grumpy! (ahem. That totally wasn’t ever me….) The girl who runs a super cute fashion blog does not dress that way all the time! She DOES own sweatpants! But for a fashion blog, I mean, obviously you’d never see her in them unless you knew her personally.

Real life is real life for everyone, across the board. We all have our own struggles, we all have a sink full of dishes, we all go two or three days without changing out of our comfy pants- it’s fine. If someone chooses to only show off the highlights of their life, that’s their prerogative. Just know that it isn’t the whole story.

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William Shakespeare

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Hamlet is full of references to the wide gulf that often exists between how things appear and how they really are. From Hamlet ’s own “craft[ed]” madness to Claudius ’s many schemes and plots involving Polonius , Ophelia , Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern to the very foundation of Denmark’s political stability (or lack thereof), things within Elsinore castle are hardly ever as they seem. Hamlet ’s characters’ collective desire to make sense of the difference between what’s real and what’s not drives them to deception, cruelty, and indeed even madness. In acting mad, Hamlet succeeds in driving himself mad; in pretending to spurn Hamlet’s affections, Ophelia actually creates a searing rift between them; in trying to ignore the fact that her new husband murdered her old one, Gertrude forgets the truth and abandons her moral compass. Ultimately, Shakespeare makes the slightly metaphysical argument that the desire to determine which aspects of a person’s character or actions are “real” or intentional actually serves to expose the fact that there is, perhaps, sometimes no difference between what is real and what is perceived; the identities people perform and the choices they make, even in jest, become their realities.

Throughout the play, many of the major characters find themselves confounded by the gulf between how things appear to be and how they really are—even as they themselves engage in subterfuge and masquerades in repeated attempts to present themselves other than as they are, or deliberately mislead one another. Hamlet is the most egregious example of this behavior—he pretends to be mad in order to confuse the members of court at Elsinore and make them believe he’s crazy or blind to what’s going on at the castle, so that he can more sneakily investigate Claudius and come to a conclusion about whether or not his uncle really did murder his father. In his attempts to pass himself off as mad, Hamlet spurns, denigrates, and verbally harasses Ophelia and his mother, Gertrude; entangles two of his old school friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in a wild goose chase that leads to their deaths; and berates, offends, and condemns Gertrude as he attempts to ascertain her complicity (or lack thereof) in King Hamlet’s demise. Even as Hamlet deceives those around him in an attempt to save his own skin, he worries incessantly about the guises others adopt to survive at court. He lambasts Ophelia—and, by proxy, all women—for wearing makeup on their faces, accusing them of presenting themselves other than as they are. He makes fun of Polonius’s wormy, fawning obsequiousness to the king and queen, even though he knows it is the job of courtiers and councilors to serve the monarchy. He calls out Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as players in his mother and uncle’s plot to get to the root of his own (false) madness, even though he knows they, too are at the mercy of royalty, unable to refuse the demands of their rulers. Hamlet’s constant anxiety about being lied to, or merely shown a version of reality that runs counter to the truth, is the subject of several length monologues and soliloquies—but ultimately, Hamlet’s endless inquiries into the morality of constructed appearances lead nowhere: at the end of the day, he is complicit in his own worst fears.

Other characters who bring into question the gulf between appearance and reality include the ghost of Hamlet’s father, Hamlet’s mother Gertrude, Polonius, and Ophelia. The ghost of Hamlet’s father claims to be the late King Hamlet—but Hamlet himself has reservations about the ghost’s true nature which are further called into question when the ghost appears to Hamlet a second time inside of Gertrude’s chambers. Gertrude claims to not be able to see the ghost, allowing for several possibilities: the ghost may indeed be a figment of Hamlet’s own imagination, or Gertrude may be pretending not to be able to see the ghost for fear of admitting to her complicity in his murder (or simply her indifference to marrying his killer to retain her own political position). The ghost itself tampers with the denizens of Elsinore’s ideas about “reality,” inspiring awe and fear in Horatio, Marcellus , and other watchmen and sentinels. Gertrude, meanwhile, appears innocent and ignorant of her husband’s murder—but she may, in reality, be affecting innocence just as Hamlet affects madness as a cover for a darker motive. Polonius, too, is guilty of presenting a version of himself that runs counter to the truth of who he is: he makes claims about himself and offers advice that contradict his own actions, such as when he tells Laertes “to thine own self be true,” contradicting his own behavior as a fawning courtier loyal to the whims of his superiors, or when he claims that “brevity is the soul of wit” before embarking on several lengthy, long-winded monologues. Ophelia claims to be pure, honest, and undesirous of Hamlet’s sexual or romantic attention—and yet their interactions seem to suggest that she and Hamlet have a long (and lurid) history, making her desperate attempts at purporting her purity all the more pathetic when seen through Hamlet’s eyes. Ultimately, Hamlet, who has been pretending to be mad for so long, drives himself to the edge of sanity, adopting a kind of nihilism when it comes to questions of life and death, morality, and reality itself. Gertrude, who pretends to be an innocent victim, becomes one when she unwittingly drinks poisoned wine intended for Hamlet. Polonius, who sacrificed his moral compass in service to a corrupt crown, is held up as a tragic loss for the court after his death, revered and mourned by the king. Ophelia, who denied her love for Hamlet in an attempt to appease her father, is buried as a virgin, in spite of the play’s suggestion that she was not pure when she died. All of these characters become the things they once merely pretended to be—and the line between appearance and reality grows blurrier and blurrier as the play progresses.

Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most complex plays, noted throughout history for its ambiguous moral center, deep existentialism, and deft exploration of appearance versus reality. As Shakespeare shows how fine the line between appearance and reality really is, he transforms the play into a cautionary tale about the dangers of adopting behaviors, traits, and ways of moving through the world that obscure or corrupt the truth of who one really is.

Appearance vs. Reality ThemeTracker

Appearance vs. Reality Quotes in Hamlet

Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not “seems.”

This above all—to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

O, villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain!

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form, in moving how express and admirable; in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her?

The play’s the thing, Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.

To be or not to be—that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And, by opposing, end them.

Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me…

Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me, you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck out the heart of my mystery… ’Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below; Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

CLAUDIUS: What dost thou mean by this?

HAMLET: Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio—a fellow of infinite jest… Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar?

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Dream Vs Reality Analytical Essay

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Dream vs. Reality: Essay Introduction

Dreams: a historical perspective, dreams vs reality, sleeping and dreaming, psychology dreaming, accessing physical experiences, dreams and reality: essay conclusion, works cited.

The concept of dreams has eluded even the most renowned philosophers and psychologists, including Aristotle, Plato, and Sigmund Freud. Plato likened dreams to a presentation that we experience while sleeping (Hamilton, Cairns and Cooper 571). Modern psychology seems to have borrowed the definition of a dream from Plato’s, in that they have defined dreams as sequences of experiences borne of imagination during sleep (Dennett 129).

The aim of this statement of intent is to provide a more holistic definition of dreams from both a historical as well as a modern perspective. There is often a very thin line between “dreams” and “reality”. As such, it is indispensable to examine such a link.

Sigmund Freud commenced his psychoanalytical study on dreams in 1900 with a complaint that philosophers viewed his idea of dreams as second-rate and intellectually unworthy (Freud 5). In his article, ‘Dreams’, Manser opines that Freud had “littler to say about the nature of dreams which is of interest to the philosopher” (415). There appears to be little attention devoted to the concept of dream by philosophers, even as the topic puzzled such renowned philosophers as Aristotle and Plato.

There is a need to define what dreaming is, and how one may distinguish between reality and dreams. From a historical point of view, dreams are a frightening and puzzling phenomenon. Prehistorically, ancestors also viewed dreams as messages sent to them by demons and gods. To the fatalist, dreams are portents or omens of future events.

Ancient Greek philosophers adopted a rather rational naturalist approach to dreams. Aristotle provided the definition of dreams as that experience one has in his/her sleep (Ross 56). On the other hand, Plato defined dreams as the visions that we always recall in our waking hours (Hamilton et al 571). Modern psychology appears to have adopted the Aristotelian stance: dreams are sequences of experiences borne of imagination during sleep (Dennett 129).

Nietzsche’s argument blaming the belief in ghosts, gods, resurrection and life after death on the doorstep of the dream was sensible (LaBerge 231). Supposing that, the idea of soul-body arose from subjective experiences in the dream world, whether or not the soul was an objective reality depended on reality insight placed on the dream.

If, in ancient times, human believed that they had discovered a second real world in a dream, what did that mean? Was it a mere intuitively verifiable existence? Few possibilities exist in an attempt to solve the mystery of these questions. Whether dreams are real and if they are, how do they compare to physical reality in terms of the mental truths (LaBerge 231).

Two issues emerged – one was the extent to which an experience appears to be subjectively real. The second was the extent the experience appears to be objectively real (this was independent of the first). Simple logic affirms that something exists only if it can cause an effect on another thing (LaBerge 233). Therefore, since it is extraordinarily difficult to interact with a dream physically, proving that it existed in reality was exceedingly difficult.

The line between dream and reality is often frightfully thin. Although one can hardly control the contents of their sleep compared with those of waken imagination and daydreams, on the other hand, dreams appear to have a stronger false impression of reality. Baudrillard opines that our cultural products do not distort or reflect a basic existing reality anymore; instead, the absence of reality seems to have been concealed (262).

The emergence of novel computer and media technologies presents yet another challenge to the reality vs. dream issue, because, through this interaction, we can immerse in virtual reality. Consequently, we cease being external observers per se and partake in a synthesis of “cyberspace” borne of our association with computer technology. Virtual reality has effectively ended the conventional technological dream of establishing an ideal illusion of reality.

From the historical perspective, it was understood that dream were mystifying, as human awoke to self-consciousness to consciousness of mortality. Many people came up with religious and magical explanations to explain the strange visions they experienced during sleep (Dennett 130). This introduced thoughts like the ability of the soul to depart the body and travel to other places. The possibility of the dead and the living interacting were a possibility. Some even believed that, dreams in sleep were messages from gods or destiny.

Philosophers like Plato emerged with rational naturalist approaches, characterizing dreams as visions in people (Plato 571), remembered in reality.

Aristotle, on the other hand, put it that dreams were some presentation or imagination, specifically those that occurred during sleep (Dennett 130). Aristotle affirms that dream were not God-sent neither did they present any future predictions (Ross 46). Yet, sometimes, dream could be an inspiration for future happenings.

Plato, being more imaginative, compared mad people with sleepers and found that, their thought were false, for instance, feeling of flying. Plato realized that, however much decent man appeared, there was always a low and licentious point of experiences during dreams (Plato 571). This thought anticipated that Freud’s idea of many-layered organization of human consciousness (Freud, “Introductory Lectures” 21).

Freud’s theory purports rest as a function of sleep, which could be well experienced in dreamless sleep. However, when control of the daytime consciousness was resting in sleep, the subconscious mental process continues to work on an immature level (Freud “Introductory Lectures” 21).

Therefore, dreams were regressive. They go back to visual images, more so the primary sexual desires (Freud, “Interpretation of Dreams” 67). An idea that Freud added to Plato’s theory of dream-work: dreams guaranteed sleep, blocked censorship, by revisiting the original latent dream idea, and then disguising its manifestation (Plato 571).

As people argue, we spend about one third of our lives in sleep, it is crucial to conduct extensive research to understand dream and sleep. Study of sleep and dream shows proof of principal experiences in sleep, for instance, the sleep-wake cycle, sleep disorders, sleep regulations and snoring among others (LaBerge 233).

Based on the nature of scientific studies, the studies of sleep often look at physical signs like body temperatures, eye movement, and blood pressure. philosophers cannot hence be able to use these data to draw conclusions. Philosophy is more interested in a dream while psychology deals with the sleeping process. Therefore, studying dreaming and sleeping will require the use of internal mental processes and reactions to interpret what happens in sleep in external viewpoint (Ross 49).

Connecting the internal and external features becomes intricate. Having no characteristics and stable variables to use for studying dreams, little research is available on the topic compared to other topics like reasoning, memory, Imagination and beliefs. Dreams still puzzle people since the times of Plato, and Aristotle. Concerns of how to identify dreams, individual and social function of dreams, and the logic behind dreaming, lead to metaphysics, mind philosophy, culture and epistemology. Dreaming hence remains fascinating.

Dreaming is a fascinating experience and rather under-researched. Dreams also challenge the real life experiences and the fact that human think they understand consciousness and conscious (Freud, “Introductory Lectures” 21). There are numerous theories of the mind that do not dream and reality.

Hence, they are incomplete. Scholars can be motivated to be more imaginative about dreaming, and to include it in a number of philosophical topics because of they will draw defined pedagogical utilities. The study of sleep and dreaming by use of inventive experiments developed by psychologist form an exceptional way of studying physiology and phenomenology, and experiential and conceptual approaches in the study of mind.

Despite the discovery of the fascinating rapid eye movement (REM) sleep relationship with dreams, there has not been much thoughtful derivative of the mind philosophy. Epistemologists still use dream concepts to address skepticism, has barely influenced the active self-image of mainstream philosophy of mind.

It is often difficult to measure dream for study especially when comparing dream and reality because, one has to do comparison against real-life events (Metzinger 528). However, the better way to study dream and reality is to compare dream metal event against wake mental events. A number of experiences can e improbable in physical reality but intensely easily to imagine in a dream. Only a broad perceptual (Hallucinatory) model of dreaming has compared dream and reality.

There is a new focus on lucid dreaming and lucid. Some evidence has indicated that, people experiencing lucid dream were also likely to fluctuate between viewpoints dream and mental life. A lucid dreamer always knows that the existing world of the dream was not real (Metzinger 530).

Metzinger suggested that a lucid dreamer understood the phenomenon they experienced did not vary with external physical reality in content. To the farthest, lucid dreamer can recollect full memory and remember at least some characteristics of phenomenology of agency (Metzinger 530).

In his study on children’s dream, Foulkes recommended research on the connection between dreaming and skills of imagination and manipulation of patterns (Foulkes 9). Probably, visual-spatial capacities somehow assisted in generation of continuous kinematic imagery typical of happier dreams.

Too young children had rather static dreams. Foulkes connects the continued production of spontaneous kinematics imagery. In a study lab of young adults, participants were to respond on whether they saw themselves the way another person would do, or whether they saw the dream in their own eyes (Foulkes 9). A remarkably small percentage saw themselves in the dream. They did not experience kinematic imagery.

However, seeing the dream in their own eyes saw the dreamers experienced much kinematic imagery. Research that explicitly question subjects to specify a certain perspective of their dream and memory experience is not a vital choice in this fascinating domain. Most people impulsively flip between perspectives and confidence retrospective judgment of the dream is not always high.

Our mental health depends on dreams. Through science, one can understand nature better is by first achieving harmony. However, perhaps we need not be so concerned with turning dreams into reality; instead, we should just let them remain dreams. Are Dreams Functional? Currently, there are many logical reasons of functional and the way dreams appeared different from sense of function.

Even though there are incredible adaptationist accounts for sleep and phases of the sleep-cycle itself, there is reason to perceive that mental activity that took place in sleep was an authentic example of byproduct of what was designed during sleep-wake cycle. If this was right, there would be a situation where dreaming was mysteriously an uncontrolled sequeale, a spandrel and exaptation.

Baudrillard, Jean. The Precession of Simulacra . New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1984. Print.

Dennett, Dan. Are Dreams Experiences ? In Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology . Brighton: Harvester Press, 1981. Print.

Foulkes, David. Children’s Dreaming and the Development of Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1999. Print.

Freud, Sigmund. Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1973. Print.

Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams . London: Allen & Unwin, 1951. Print.

Hamilton, Edith, Huntington Cairns, and Lane Cooper. The Collected Dialogues of Plato: Including the Letters . Princeton: Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2005. Print.

LaBerge, Stephen. Dreaming, Illusion, And Reality in Lucid Dreaming . New York: Ballantine, 1985. Print.

Manser, Paul. Dreams, in P. Edwards (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy . London: Collier and Macmillan, 1967. Print.

Metzinger, Thomas. Being No-one: The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004. Print.

Plato, Aristocles. The Collected Dialogues . Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961. Print.

Ross, William. Aristotle . London: Routledge, 1995. Print.

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Writing An Essay: Expectations Vs Reality

Expectation: Submitting it early Reality: Livin' life on the edge and getting it in at 11.58pm

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Essay writing is quite the art form. If we’re talking about the Year 4, pick three colours and try to colour in a koala kind of art.

Here’s what you’re probably expecting writing an essay to be like versus what it’s actually like.

Expectation: Getting Started Is The Hardest Part

Reality: the whole damn essay is the hardest part.

Those procrastinators among us often convince ourselves that it’s totally fine to leave one day for the completion of an assignment — because once you actually start that essay, you’ll be able smash it out in one go.

This is almost never true. It isn’t until you actually start writing the essay that you realise how much you dislike writing essays, and it’s painful to know that you have to be essay-ing for the next eight hours straight.

Expectation: Writing About A Topic You Already Know About Is A Piece Of Cake

Reality: you still need to find references for every single fact you already know.

It’s all fun and games when you get an essay topic on something that you’re already particularly interested in. That is, until you realise you can’t include any of the random facts you know without referencing a scholarly article.

I know that the purpose of a kettle is to boil water in an accessible jug – do I really need to say that Bill actually said it in his paper on Kitchen Essentials in 1995?

Expectation: Leaving Your Beloved Bibliography Until Last Because It’ll Take You No Time!

Reality: panicking at 11:58pm about whether you’re meant to use a full stop or comma after the author’s name.

We’ve been writing bibliographies for years now, how hard could it actually be? Hard. We can never be quite sure where the brackets go, or the colons and commas. I guess, when you think about it, why on earth would our brains choose to store information about the difference between italics and quotations in a bibliography over Cardi B’s new lyrics? That’s right – it doesn’t. Maybe next time we’ll remember that and leave a solid three hours for our bibliographies? Nah.

Expectation: Submitting Your Essay Early To Make Life Easier

Reality: living life on the edge and submitting at 40 seconds ’til midnight.

“Golly, I’m definitely never leaving my essay until the last minute again – I don’t want to be emailing the Dean again on account of my late submissions. Early, stress-free starts it is for me now!”

Four weeks later.

“Hey Mr Dean, it’s your pal Claudia again (whoop)! So, funny story, this the 7 th time I missed the assignment deadline, but the silver lining is that I made a new PB — submitted it only 20 seconds over the cut-off time! I feel like you’d be high-fiving me right about now, sir?”

Expectation: Technology Is Amazing – Look How Fast You Can Type Your Assignment

Reality: screw technology.

Being able to access the uni library from the comfort of your trackies, thanks to your trusty laptop, is definitely one of the perks to 21 st century uni life. It’s all fun and games until your computer fails and loses your entire essay just minutes before it is due.

Expectation: Essay Structure Is So Simple And Straightforward

Reality: “when do i start a new paragraph”  .

You’d think finding content to write about would be the hardest part of the essay – that is, until you find yourself questioning the use of semicolons and wondering how many words should make up a sentence.

Expectation: Only 4000 Words? I’ll Definitely Take Advantage Of That Extra 10%!

Reality: wondering whether your tutor will accept 632 words.

Remember the good old days in high school when you would write 700 words over the word limit just because? Although you may not realise it at first – in uni, word limits will be your enemy. You’ll find yourself including “just a few” extra convincing, incredible and persuasive adjectives, in an attempt to bump up your word count.

Perhaps we should learn from our mistakes and learn to write essays properly and punctually? Nah – where’s the fun in that?

(Lead image: The Office/NBC)